| Terry Ellis Cunningham Jr 2004-01-23, 7:19 pm |
| Greetings, all.. I need a little assistance with a DNS issue that I'm
having, and was hoping that someone here could help. Note that the
scenario that I am about to describe is something that I inherited, and I
did not lay this network out myself.
The company that I work for (I will call it Example. Inc.) has 1 internal
DNS server and 2 external DNS servers. The LAN Windows PCs log into an
internal Windows domain (PDC is Win NT4) named EXAMPLE.COM. We also have
an external, registered domain, with the same name of EXAMPLE.COM (both
the internal domain and external domain have the same name). There is no
real connection between the internal and external domains, meaning, for
example that the internal and external DNS servers are not in a
master/slave relationship or anything. The external EXAMPLE.COM is a
master zone, and the internal EXAMPLE.COM is also a master zone. The
internal DNS server has several static entries for hosts on our internal
network, and it has forwards set up to resolve the names of hosts that are
in the external EXAMPLE.COM domain (the internal DNS server forwards
requests for external EXAMPLE.COM hosts to the external DNS servers. No
external hosts have their IP addresses listed in the internal DNS server,
and no internal hosts have their IP addresses listed in the external DNS
servers.
The existing DNS servers are all running on Windows NT4 server, and I am
preparing to replace the internal DNS server with BIND 9.2.1 on Redhat 9.
To reduce the risk of "breaking" the network here, I am trying to stay as
close the the current layout as possible (except I'm replacing some MS
servers). I have configured the new DNS server as a Zone master for
(internal) domain EXAMPLE.COM. I have added forward zones and reverse
zones that more-or-less match the setup on the existing internal DNS
server. Name resolution works for internal hosts that are defined on the
new DNS server, and DNS requests for internet addresses (other than those
for hosts in the EXAMPLE.COM internet domain) are being properly serviced
by the root servers. Things are working pretty well, except for the one
thing that has led to my call for help: Internal hosts cannot resolve
hosts that are in the external EXAMPLE.COM domain. I've tried setting up
forwarders on the new internal DNS server (forwarding to the external DNS
servers), but they do not seem to have any effect. I could make it work
if I created zones for the external EXAMPLE.COM domain on the internal DNS
server and added the external hosts to the internal DNS, but I am trying
to avoid doing this. I simply want the internal DNS server to forward
queries for my external hosts to the external DNS servers.
Hopefully someone out there understands my issue, and can help. Thanks
for any replies.
Terry
|